the swing

INXS had great expectations as they faced the change and took their new wave funk rock fusion into never never land with this mercurial dance pop crucible.  Their previous album 'Shabooh Shoobah' had broken the band in the US; leading to a tour with Men At Work.  It was backstage after a show in Toronto that the band met Nile Rodgers, who arranged a recording session at New York's  Power Station studio.  Michael Hutchence would recount:    "Nile said we should get together for a jam. We said 'good!'. Well, he said, 'if we're going to do that, let's record it'. We said 'yeah!'  In fact, he went on, 'if we're going to record it, we might as well record it properly'. 'OK!' we said...Nile's one of the most inspirational musicians I've ever met. He's so damned exuberant.  You don't even know you're making a record.  It's more like you're having a party."

The session also included Daryl Hall on backing vocals.  Tim Farris remembers:    "The whole recording session was fantastic, Nile likes to let things just happen. It only took two takes. We thought we were just jamming so Nile and the engineer (Jason Corsaro) could get sound levels, and when we were finished he said 'OK, we've got a take!'"

The remainder of the album was recorded with producer Nick Launay in Oxfordshire, England at The Manor; and in Australia at Rhinoceros, Paradise and Emerald City Studios.  The sessions featured Garry Gary Beers on bass guitar;  Andrew Farriss on guitar and keyboards;  Jon Farriss on percussion and drums;  Tim Farriss on guitar;  Michael Hutchence on vocals;  and Kirk Pengilly on guitar, saxophone, vocals, and photography;   with string arrangements by Phillip Mortlock and William Motzing;  and backing vocals by Sherine Abeyratne, Andrew Duffield, Kim Liat Edwards, Sean Kelly, Norma Lewis, Jenny Morris, Frank Simms, and David Spinner.      Launay considers:   "Recording 'The Swing' was an exhausting, stressed, amazing time.  The band drew from so many cool places.  It was all recorded live, as albums should be - done half at the Manor and half in Sydney - and you can hear the result, which was literally half winter and half summer. I think it says so much about INXS, that they put out an album with one song 'Original Sin' done with Nile Rodgers, the top producer of the day, and one of the greatest funk guitar players of all time, while the rest of the album was produced by me, the guy known for working with the most left-of-center dark alternative bands.  That's just weird.  And that's just great. And that's how they continued to do things."  


'The Swing' swung to number fifty-two in the US, thirty-seven in the Netherlands, twenty-seven in Canada, six in New Zealand, and number one in Australia.  The album went five times platinum in Australia and won numerous awards there including Album Of The Year.

http://inxs.com/

"Original Sin" was mistaken for a song about interracial love and courted controversy as radio stations and the band received death threats over it.  Hutchence reveals the inspiration for the lyrics:  "We were in Buffalo or somewhere, outside a gig waiting for the soundcheck, and I was just looking at kids playing - you know, blacks, whites, and Hispanics in this mixed neighbourhood.  And I just thought, they're gonna  lose their dreams - everyday they wake up, another reality is forced on them, and they're having a great time until they're told 'this is a sin,' they didn't know yet that they were being conditioned...It was written quite innocently, I didn't expect people to even really take notice."   While it was banned in many places in the US, it made it to number fifty-eight on the US pop chart.  It fared better around the world, going to thirty-one in the Netherlands; twenty in Canada; six in New Zealand; and number one in Australia, Argentina, France, and Italy.  
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTULqzrhBWA


You might know of the original sin
And you might know how to play with fire
But did you know of the murder committed
In the name of love you thought what a pity

Dream on white boy
Dream on black girl
Then wake up to a brand new day
To find your dreams are washed away

There was a time when I did not care
And there was a time when the facts did stand
There is a dream and held by me
Well I'm sure you had to see it's up in arms

Dream on white boy
Dream on black girl
Then wake up to a brand new day
To find your dreams have washed away

You might know of the original sin
And you might know how to play with fire
But did you know of the murder committed
In the name of love you thought what a pity

Dream on white boy
Dream on black girl
Then wake up to a brand new day
Dream on black boy
Dream on white girl
Then wake up to a brand new day
Dream on black boy
Dream on white girl
Then wake up to a brand new day
To find your dreams are washed away

Dream on, to play with fire
White boy, black girl
Dream on, in the name of love
Black boy, white girl
White boy, black girl
Black boy, white girl

Dream on
The name of love, yeah
You thought what a pity


Original sin




"I Send a Message" was received at eighteen in New Zealand and three in Australia.  





"Burn for You" sizzled at thirty-nine in New Zealand and three in Australia.  




"Dancing on the Jetty" argued with itself at number thirty-nine on the Australian chart.  
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lR8Dh_495Js




"Melting in the Sun"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UimNJSga-0




"Love Is (What I Say)"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H19JyoQwgF0




"All the Voices"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLNmHSHZTqA






'The Swing'
full album:  




1. "Original Sin"  (Andrew Farriss, Michael Hutchence)  5:19 
2. "Melting in the Sun" (Tim Farriss, Jon Farriss, Hutchence) 3:25
3. "I Send a Message"   3:24  (A. Farriss, Hutchence)
4. "Dancing on the Jetty"  (A. Farriss, Hutchence) 4:34
5. "The Swing" (Garry Gary Beers, A. Farriss, T. Farriss, Hutchence, Kirk Pengilly) 3:52
6. "Johnson's Aeroplane" (A. Farriss) 3:53
7. "Love Is (What I Say)" (Beers, A. Farriss, Hutchence, Pengilly, Anthony Braxton-Smith) 3:42
8. "Face the Change" (A. Farriss, Hutchence, Pengilly) 3:34
9. "Burn for You"   (A. Farriss, Hutchence) 4:59
10. "All the Voices"   (A. Farriss, Hutchence) 6:06

kick

INXS calcitrated their career into hyperdrive with the new wave funk of this pop juggernaut.  After the modest success of 'What You Need' and 'Listen Like Thieves', the band was primed for a breakthrough. 'Kick' was recorded at Rhinoceros Studios in Sydney, Australia and Studio de la grande Armée in Paris, France. The sessions were produced by Chris Thomas and engineered by David Nicholas with Michael Hutchence on vocals; Andrew Farriss on keyboards and guitars; Kirk Pengilly on guitars, sax, and vocals; Tim Farriss on guitars; Garry Gary Beers on basses; and Jon Farriss on drum and percussions. The album was mixed at Air Studios in London by Bob Clearmountain.

Beers says:  "We understood that Andrew writes the best music, and Michael obviously writes the best lyrics, because he sings them; so we left it totally up to them."


Hutchence deferred:  "I'm not a great political lyricist, and I don't claim to be. I don't like knee-jerk politics. Anybody can read the front pages and write down, 'It's bad, it's bad, it's bad.' This is probably the most educated the most educated, conscientious generation in history. They're not stupid. Why tell people something they read in the newspapers last month? We don't make any great claims to change the world, but hopefully somewhere in our lyrics we are prodding people."

Andrew Farriss recalls how he and Hutchence went to Hong Kong to write new material: "Michael had decided to leave Australia again and, in retrospect, it was kinda like he was rolling up his sleeves and ready to take on the world again. But the making of Kick was full of some very odd moments. I wrote the music to Need You Tonight waiting for a cab to take me to the airport to fly out to Hong Kong. I arrived, played Michael the piece of music and within two hours we had the finished track! Michael was much more at ease socially than I in Hong Kong because he knew his way around. My trip was littered with bizarre moments and language problems – very funny stuff where I was getting out of cabs stranded in the middle of nowhere but the Hong Kong session produced 'Mediate', 'Guns In The Sky', 'Calling All Nations'...Actually making the whole album was odd when I look back. We were in New Zealand and the rest of the band were out playing tennis with an A&R guy called Jimmy Hendrix when I first wrote the music for 'Never Tear Us Apart'. Odd moments threw up odd things and somehow they all fell into place."

Pengilly remembers:  "It certainly was a really enjoyable album. We were working in a studio that we part-owned at the time. It was brand new, a very large studio that allowed us to all play live together. There were lots of different rooms, so we could isolate each guitar amp and whatever else. There were windows in a panoramic 180-degree thing, so we could all see each other. It was a really great vibe, being able to put these tracks down together rather than building up from a drum track or whatever else — which never worked for us. 'Cause after all the years we'd been playing together, there was a lot of spontaneity, especially between the rhythm section, Garry and Jon. There was a positive attitude; it felt comfortable."

Jon Farriss considers:  "I went through this whole phase around the time of the 'Kick' and 'X' albums where I was triggering everything. I was playing acoustically, but every tom and drum had a mic on it that went through a triggering device that would then make a sequential imprint in a computer. Then we would offset the MIDI delay of that, and the variations of that, to be precisely recorded in the computer, so that at any time I could mix sounds in with it. That enabled the actual live performance to be kept, but some of the sounds were rearranged. From there, I would record all of that and then sample various effects."

Tim Farriss says:  “We were so caught up in what we were doing we didn’t think about sounding contemporary or not. This slinky rock and roll is what we do.”

The band's manager Chris Murphy remembers the reaction of the record executives: "They hated it, absolutely hated it... the president of the label told me that he'd give us one million dollars to go back to Australia and make another album." The band refused and 'Kick' catapaulted them into multi-platinum success around the world, going to number eleven in the UK, nine in Germany, three in the US, and number one in Australia and New Zealand. 'Kick' has sold over twenty-one million copies worldwide, with a diamond certification for ten million copies in the US alone.

Andrew Farriss admits:   "All the songs off 'Kick' I love performing live because the stars aligned for us on that album - it was like the universe all came into focus at one time and place for us. In 1987 when we gave it to the record company, they hated it and wanted us to go back and re-record it. That's a true story. They didn't understand it and they'd never heard anything like it. We said, 'Yeah, that's why we love it.' It's scary because you put this massive amount of thought into a project and then it gets shrugged off. It's devastating to not so much your ego but your creativity. But then to have it massively, commercially received, that was just extraordinary...We weren't just brats off the block. We just said, 'No, we have to be really strong with this and this is what we are going to do.'"

Hutchence said at the time:  "We've been together for about eleven years; so it's very typical of Australian bands to stick together through thick and thin. It must be something about growing up in Australia that prepares you to do that...I guess we're lucky we're lucky to have that time and experience in pubs in Australia to make us strong we're very strong we really do believe in ourselves...I think for any Australian band there's an element where you have to take yourself out of the pub to the rest of the world. and that is a very crucial time. There's tons of australian bands; but they wouldn't mean anything to anyone else. It's a very important moment for a band to leave Australia...it's how they approach that that makes or breaks them...I think that artists have got way bigger things to contend with. Politics are just there because we haven't got the basics right. I'm more into dealing with the basics: life death and everything in between."









http://inxsonline.com/










'Need You Tonight / Mediate' was a worldwide smash, going to sixteen in Germany, thirteen in the Netherlands and on the US mainstream rock tracks chart, three in Australia and New Zealand, two in the UK, and number one in Canada and on the US pop chart. 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exb3IwSV0HU






'Devil Inside' rose to forty-seven in the UK; forty-one in the Netherlands; thirty-three in Germany; six in Australia; three in Canada; and two in New Zealand and on the US pop and mainstream rock track charts.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=luobOzreRq4







'New Sensation' went to thirty-five in Germany, twenty-five in the UK, sixteen in New Zealand, fourteen in the Netherlands, eight in Australia and on the US mainstream rock tracks chart, three on the US pop chart, and number one in Canada.







'Never Tear Us Apart' hit sixty-six in Germany, twenty-eight on the US modern rock tracks chart, twenty-four in the UK, twenty-one in New Zealand, fourteen in Australia, nine in Canada and the Netherlands, seven on the US pop chart, and five on the US mainstream rock tracks chart.







'Kick / Mystify / Never Tear Us Apart'
The title track charted at number thirty-three on the US mainstream rock tracks chart and 'Mystify' found its way to number fifty-thrin the Netherlands, forty-six in Germany, seventeen on the US mainstream rock tracks chart, fourteen in the UK, and number five in Canada.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLqzpBnCA2M













'Kick' 

full album:




00:00 "Guns in the Sky" (Michael Hutchence) – 2:21
02:22 "New Sensation" – 3:39
06:02 "Devil Inside" – 5:14
11:18 "Need You Tonight" – 3:01
14:19 "Mediate" (Andrew Farriss) – 2:36
16:56 "The Loved One" (Ian Clyne, Gerry Humphreys and Rob Lovett) – 3:37
20:34 "Wild Life" – 3:10
23:44 "Never Tear Us Apart" – 3:05
26:50 "Mystify" – 3:17
30:11 "Kick" – 3:14
33:22 "Calling All Nations" – 3:02
36:26 "Tiny Daggers" – 3:29

listen like thieves

INXS had their commercial breakthrough in the states with listen like thieves. producer chris thomas went after a live sound in the studio, which brought out the funkiness without softening the harder edges. this was a big change from the overly produced sound of the swing. it was also their 'promotion' from adko to atlantic records. it is my favorite of all of their albums.

for me, every song is a winner. after the killer one-two-three punch of 'what you need', 'listen like thieves', and 'kiss the dirt' comes the delicate transcendence of 'shine like it does'. 'good + bad times' and 'biting bullets' rock harder than anything they had ever done. 'this time' picks up where 'dancing on the jetty' (from the swing) left off, taking the political to the personal. the atmospheric instrumental 'three sisters' provides a subtle interlude with sounds that evoke the outback. the driving beat of 'same direction' is intoxicating; it should have been a single. 'one x one' lays down some serious funk and 'red red sun' kicks things into apocalyptic overdrive for a big finish with fantastic guitar work.




http://inxs.com/

'what you need' was recorded after the album was finished because producer chris thomas said there was "no hit". they all liked the funky guitar riff from the demo and worked it into a great song very quickly. it was their first top ten hit, peaking at number five.

'this time' was the first single from the album; but it didn't go very far.

'kiss the dirt (falling down the mountain)' didn't chart in the states.

the single for the title track didn't chart either; but it featured their most elaborate video to date.

shine like it does

listen like thieves
full album:





All tracks written by Andrew Farriss and Michael Hutchence,[16] unless otherwise indicated.

1. "What You Need" 3:35
2. "Listen Like Thieves" (Garry Gary Beers, A. Farriss, Jon Farriss, Tim Farriss, Hutchence, Kirk Pengilly) 3:46
3. "Kiss the Dirt (Falling Down the Mountain)" 3:56
4. "Shine Like It Does" 3:05
5. "Good + Bad Times" (Hutchence, Pengilly) 2:46
6. "Biting Bullets" (Hutchence, Pengilly) 2:49
7. "This Time" (A. Farriss) 3:11
8. "Three Sisters" (T. Farriss) 2:27
9. "Same Direction" 4:58
10. "One x One" 3:05
11. "Red Red Sun" (A. Farriss, J. Farriss) 3:32